#I would like to add we had two weeks notice for this hullabaloo

[songbirdstew]

We're going to a wedding reception on Sunday. In November. In the evening. Outside. Where it will be 40*F and raining.

I just went to the thrift store and bought 7 sweaters.

[auskultu]

Andy Warhol and the Big Bird—Pop Pope Casts Mama Cass

Danny Fields, Hullabaloo, May 1967

SHE HAD ALWAYS BEEN FASCINATED WITH HIM... AND HE HAD ALWAYS WANTED TO MEET HER ...HULLABALOO SAW THEM TOGETHER, SAW HER POSING, SAW HIM FILMING HER. AND THEN... AND THEN THEY WERE INTRODUCED.

ONE OF THE nicest things about being a famous person is that it becomes more or less simple, depending upon the circles in which you move, to meet other famous people. This is the story of one such meeting, when the great Cass Elliot and the great Andy Warhol got together one day, at long last. I guess I played no specific role in bringing these two extraordinary creatures face to face; but I can, with your permission, work myself pretty boldly into the background, from whence I can supply a lot of atmosphere, subplots, pace, and truth. Eye & ear witness.

THREE BEGINNINGS To begin with: To begin with, I hope you know who Cass Elliot and Andy Warhol are.

To really begin with: The earliest events are pre-historic, if not proto-historic. Anyhow, there was a time way back in the early 60's when a fairly successful commercial artist and a fairly successful off-off-Broadway actress and singer (no kidding, that's what people did then), hung out at various coffee shops and bars on and near MacDougal Street. Who knows how many times the two of them waited together for a light to change, or sat in the same row at the Cherry Lane (Theater), or maybe even noticed each other. How could they not? But there is no record of it.

Finally, a Proper Beginning: (In honor of which, I go into the present tense). Here we can pick up the first certified occasion in this story.

IT IS April, 1966. Warhol is now an international celebrity, reigning soft and strong o'er the New York pop-art, underground movie, and uptown hippie scenes. The triple crown. Well, it would be enough for almost anyone, but it is time to add another scene. So Warhol gets himself a rock group–The Velvet Underground—which has been fired from club after club for being too far out. He puts the group in an abandoned Polish catering hall, surrounds them with (or submerges them under) moving lights and slides and strobes and films and whip-dancers; and thus he brings a new scene to the old town.

The Plastic gets booked into The Trip in Los Angeles. On opening night, April 1966, Hollywood's pop aristocracy turns out en masse to see it. The Queen, Cher, walks out, telling a reporter, "This will replace nothing, except maybe suicide." Cass Elliot, who will soon be The Empress of LA, digs the show and comes to The Trip many times while it is booked there. Andy meets the more aggressive Hollywood celebrities, like Jennifer Jones, but Cass simply leaves each night when the show is over. They do not meet.

ENTER, CASS May 1966: The Mama's and the Papa's have the #1 single and album in the country. The group is very much happening, and is in New York for a concert in Newark, which I cover for a magazine. I introduce myself to Cass backstage, and interview her. She tells me, among other things, that The Plastic at The Trip knocked her out, that she went every night. I write a short piece titled "Megamama," in which I use her quote about The Warhols. Then I tell Warhol that Cass is a great admirer of his, and he indicates that he is flattered.

August 1966: the strange events of the day it all happened. The Mama's and Papa's are in New York again for a concert at Forest Hills. Their record company gives them a reception at a chic Manhattan restaurant. The Megamama thing is now in print, and I show it to Cass who reads it aloud. MEANWHILE, ACROSS town at Warhol's studio, which is called The Factory, a very bright boy named Stephen Shore, who takes photographs and hints, gets the news that Cass is in town. Stephen suggests to Andy that Cass be invited to the Factory for a screen test.

A Warhol screen test is a silent closeup, three minutes long. It is, on one level, simply a way for Warhol to determine how a person looks on film; on another level, it is a movie portrait by the world's greatest contemporary portraitist; it is also a tribute, for Warhol will really only test people who are famous, important, rich, beautiful, or brilliant to begin with.

Back to Miss Eiliot, who is reading my story about her aloud. She comes to where she is quoted on Warhol, and re-speaks her own words with the original enthusiasm. Right at this point, a waiter begs her pardon and hands her a slip of paper: "A telephone message for Miss Elliot." Cass interrupts reading what she had said about Warhol three months earlier, and reads the communiqué. "It says Andy Warhol would like me to visit his Factory tonight to do a screen test!" she shrieks. "Wow is this fantastic! See, I knew there were vibrations between us. This is more than a coincidence; it's significant! Who knows what Warhol's sign is?" "Leo," I said. "Leo! Perfect! You don't know what this means! I don't know what it means either, but it has a meaning. I'll do it!" And up she springs, headed for the phone.

SUPERCOOL WELCOME The Mama's and Papa's arrive at the factory together, while the small crowd gathered there is looking at the first screening of a movie made by Andy earlier that week. Cass, John, Denny, and Jill (the interim Mama, remember her?) walk from the doorway to the screening area. As they move down the length of the vast tinfoil-coated room, no one rises to greet them, no one even makes a gesture to acknowledge their presence. This is not rudeness—just Factory cool in action, or non-action. The guests are from a cool scene also; they join the screening audience and look at the film.

The film ends, the lights are turned on. Some kids get up and move around, some speak, some remain seated looking ahead as if the movie were still on. The Mama's and Papa's are absorbed into the rhythm; some move, some talk, some sit. It was as if they'd always been there.

Andy is standing in a far corner, examining reels of film. His assistants begin arranging flood lights, setting up the movie camera, waving light meters around. A chair is set down in front of the movie screen.

Stephen Shore brings the word to Cass. "Pardon me, Cass. Andy would like you to sit in that chair." "Sure," she says. She walks to the chair, sits down, sits up, crosses her legs, uncrosses them, watches the preparations with curiosity and patience.

EVERYTHING IS ready, and there is really nothing to be done except to start the film rolling. Warhol, who has not yet exchanged a word with Cass, emerges from the darkness to perform the ceremony. Standing behind the camera, he looks at Cass for a moment.

"Just look at the camera," Andy tells Cass. He looks through the viewfinder and turns the switch. Three minutes later, it is done.

"Let's do another one. The same," he announces. Cass remains seated, Andy walks away, and the camera is reloaded and reset. Andy returns and shoots another three minute test.

"That's it," Andy says, and walks away again. Cass follows him with her eyes, then approaches him. "How was it?" she asks. "Oh, fantastic," Andy answers. "By the way," Stephen volunteers, "Cass, this is Andy. Andy this is Cass." "How do you do?" Andy says. "Hi," she responds. "Well, how did I do?" "Would you like to do a longer film tomorrow?" Andy replies, by way of answer. "Oh yes, yes," Cass says with exuberance. "I'd really like to do something in films. It's not enough for me, what I'm doing now. I want to get to more people and do more things, especially movies. Yours are so beautiful, Andy. I wanted to tell you that in Los Angeles, but I never had a chance." "We have to put you in a longer movie," Andy says. "She'll be a super-star," Stephen says. "She already is. She'll be Girl of the Year," I say. "You're Leo and I'm Virgo, and I knew something had to happen," she tells Andy. "I'm very mystical about these things."

FIRST IMPRESSIONS RECALLED "How was it?" I asked Cass as she waited for the elevator. "Danny, I can't begin to tell you what's in my head now; I can't even think about it. You have no idea how this whole thing turns me on. It's too much. I'll talk to you tomorrow." She has been thrilled. It has gotten to her, Andy's scene, his style, his perception.

No less than she has gotten to him. He is entranced by her presence, her style, her power, her magic. He knows what the film will look like; he knows how great she will be, how she will occupy the screen with her charismatic force, how the film will be Cass and Cass will be the film. "Did she really mean it?" he asks me. "Does she want to do another film? She's so fantastic. She's a star, wow. I hope she means it. Cass Elliot. Wow," Andy goes on, sounding like the world's biggest fan, which he is, and which is one of the sources of his genius. The very famous do not do things like everybody else, but then again, they do.

EPILOGUE I: That time in New York, Cass and Andy didn't get together again after that night. Two weeks later I was leaving for LA, and I asked Andy for prints of the screen test to bring to Cass.

I brought them to her one night. In the dining room of her legendary mountain-top A-frame house, she was entertaining Mr. and Mrs. John Sebastian when I arrived; an artist seated downtable was doing a pastel portrait of the hostess, while she looked through a portfolio of his work for paintings to give her friends. I asked her, now that she had presumably calmed down a bit, what her thoughts were about Warhol and his films.

"I only knew about his movies from seeing them at The Trip," she began. "I was fascinated by the totality of it. I became totally involved in them, completely and totally involved.

"Like just that movie of a guy eating a Hershey bar and drinking a coke. I don't think there has to be much action in films. It's internal. It's a study. Just watching someone staring is very groovy.

"Well, you saw how I flipped when I was asked to make a film for him in New York. I was pretty nervous and excited when I got to the Factory. I thought Andy was very shy. He didn't talk to me until it was over, then he said 'That's it.' Oh wait, before he started he told me to look at the camera. That was the only other thing he'd said.

"But I knew he was there all the time, and it made me feel better. I felt he was communicating with me by just looking at me through the camera. I was so involved with it. What was I doing? I was doing what was happening.

"All his female stars have been so beautiful. I'm so off-beat looking, but I felt that my combination of off-beatness and sensitivity would appeal to him because I knew he had tremendous sensitivity himself. I wanted very much to get to him. I think he should use more people like me in his movies. What did he say about me, by the way?"

"He said you were a fantastic person, external and internal, all around fantastic," I said. "Yeah," Cass said. "I think there are some things there."

EPILOGUE II: this is sort of a sad epilogue about the time last November when Andy and I went to visit Cass in her hotel suite thirty floors above Central Park. What makes it sad is that things didn't go down too well between them that night. There were hang-ups and pressures and intrusions. It doesn't matter what the hang-ups were, but they were mainly things concerning fame and public images and responsibilities, and they had a negative effect on communication.

What really counts, though, was that night at the Factory, for it was then that everything was harmonic, and felt, and unspoken; and it was then that Andy Warhol filmed Cass Elliot. He saw her that night, and while he was seeing her, she was understanding what it meant to be seen by him. It's all there in a portrait which lasts six minutes.

A very sharp girl who is a close friend of Cass said of her: "Cass has lots of hang-ups, but you know, they are not the hang-ups of a fat girl; they are the hang-ups of a beautiful woman."

And when, just after the screen test, I asked Andy what title he would give the long film he wanted to do with Cass, he looked at the chair in which she had sat, and said, "Oh, I think we'll call it The New Beauty."